Pandora – Foundation for independent research

PRESS RELEASE
Alexander Lerchl has met his Waterloo
His fraud allegation against the REFLEX Study is unlawful
Berlin, June 12, 2015 _The long lasting attacks of Alexander Lerchl from the private Jacob University in Bremen
on the results of the EU-funded REFLEX Study, have been brought to a sudden and dramatic end by the
Hamburg district court. A lab technician whom he accused of having faked the REFLEX results which showed a
DNA-damaging potential of mobile communication radiation, had lodged a complaint because of a violation of
her personal rights on August 19, 2014. The court decision dated March 13, 2015, became effective on April 21,
2015 [1], and I translate from the decision:
The admissible complaint is well founded [….]. The disputed remarks violate the plaintiff with regard to her
common personal rights [....]. Deliberately untrue factual allegations and those, whose falsehood is already
certain at the time being made, must not be accepted [….].
Finally, the court warned Alexander Lerchl to cease his attacks on the lab technician. However, he did not shy
away from destroying her professional life in his effort to remove the results of the REFLEX Study from the
scientific literature – this was the sole purpose for his unwarranted attack on this young woman.
Be it on his own or, more likely, by order from the mobile communication industry, Alexander Lerchl, a former
member of the German Commission on Radiological Protection, has since 2007 worked to ruin the credibility of
the REFLEX Study. The results of this work are in sharp contrast to Lerchl's previous findings that support the
view that mobile communication radiation is harmless. After all, Lerchl's "right" opinion not only drew the
support of industry and government for his radiation-friendly pseudo-research, but also had gained his
personal promotion to the position of Germany’s top radiation protector [2].
For years, German daily and weekly newspapers as well as news magazines uncritically supported Alexander
Lerchl’s fraud allegations against the REFLEX Study. It was certainly not their intention to do a personal favour
to him, but rather to the mobile communication industry whose advertising budgets may have stifled the
professional ethics of the publishers. It remains to be seen how the media will react to the Hamburg court
decision which highlighted Alexander Lerchl’s intellectual and character deficits. This court decision is especially
timely since this "expert" for the harmlessness of the mobile communication radiation was most recently
forced to change his mind by the findings of his own research group [3].
After all the years of stating that mobile communication radiation is harmless and attacking the findings of
researchers who found harmful effects, Alexander Lerchl is either on the way to Damascus or has met his
Waterloo.
Professor Franz Adlkofer, M.D.
Chairman of the Board